


make no bones

by lavendre



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, vague exorcist politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-30 23:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17233070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavendre/pseuds/lavendre
Summary: Post special episode 17. Seiji makes an offer. Natori fails to read between the lines.





	make no bones

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Dreamwidth 31-days comm, from the August prompt list: 31. to make a burning room of this mouth.

“Is this a setup?”   
  
“None of the sort.”  
  
“It would be a convenience for you to get me out of the way early, right?”  
  
“Would that I felt threatened by you, I suppose.” Seiji’s expression barely changes between one second and the next. Here though, his smile springs forth like a highway robbery; someone's breathing stops. “Your refusal is considerate, but I’m fine on my own.”  
  
Shuuichi nearly cracks his head on the table post in outrage.  _Says the one who can't recruit a decent shiki!_  
  
“Don’t  _you_  need it? You’re not head, yet.”  
  
Seiji snaps a rice cracker in half with his fingers. Crumbs scatter over the plate and bounce to the floor, one catching in the bland fabric of Shuuichi’s slacks. A look of resignation crosses his face and leaves again. Seiji is nothing like the garden pond out front, which poses in winter as glass. He’s an ocean, convoluted and jumpy, hard to see through -- make no mistake. “Do you not want it?”  _Crunch._  “--It’s within your capabilities.”  
  
“That’s not the point I’m trying to make,” Shuuichi sighs. The glass of barley tea drips condensation on the floor, cold and wet against his palm. Outside the curtain of tablecloth, the room beckons in a yawn of catering ware and sandals. Would that the nights were longer, less infrequent, a list of things -- if he could quit being an inconvenience for everyone, less underfoot, less attached to his hideaways -- he might  _enjoy_  taking a second platter of tea cakes.  
  
Among those things, but far at the bottom: unsolicited job offers from undetermined heirs.  
  
(He’s working on it.)  
  
“You’re stalling,” Seiji murmurs. He sweeps crumbs from his mouth with a thumb.  
  
“And you’re exhausting.  _You_  take it. I have my own sources.”  
  
Seiji’s lips curl into a tight smile, neat and clean. It’s mocking, somehow. “That’s very good.”  
  
Shuuichi takes the last sip from his glass and shuffles forward on his knees, yanking a single paper napkin from his pocket. “It is. I appreciate people who are honest with their intentions.” He drops it pointedly over Seiji’s folded legs and doesn’t allow himself to look again. A flash in his eye and at the edge of his glasses as the runner lifts against his hand; just a tumble of black hair when Seiji bends to examine it, neck flashing white and willowy against the sharp line of his kimono.  
  
_I hope someone spills punch on you,_  he thinks meanly. These kinds of encounters are only satisfying if someone gets hurt. When did he get so ugly? Why is none of this easy?  
  
At the door he signs his initials in the log book. Time of departure has him squinting at his wrist watch, the hour hand catching the seven, three-quarters done and gone. Goodbyes whisper past his shoulders without sticking --  _Natori-kun was here? I hardly saw him tonight..._  There is, he notes with some emotion brimming on despair as scans it, no familiar names on the list. He swallows.  
  
_Did I make a fool of you,_  he wonders,  _are you angry._  
  
He doesn’t stick around to find out.


End file.
